Determination of lamivudine and stavudine in pharmaceutical preparations using chemometrics-assisted spectrophotometry

A simple chemometrics-assisted spectrophotometric method for the simultaneous determination of lamivudine and stavudine in pharmaceutical tablets is described. The UV absorption spectra of the studied drugs, in the range of 200–310 nm, showed a considerable degree of spectral overlapping (D_i]^0.5 = 94.9%). Resolution of the mixture has been accomplished by using classical least-squares regression analysis (CLS) and principle components regression analysis methods (PCR). Beer’s law was obeyed for both drugs in the general concentration ranges of 2–12 and 3–15 μg ml⁻¹ for lamivudine and stavudine, respectively. The proposed methods were successfully applied for the determination of the two drugs in laboratory prepared mixtures. The overall recoveries percent were found 98.58 ± 1.53–101.30 ± 1.35 (CLS) and 98.62 ± 1.65–101.13 ± 1.04 (PCR) for lamivudine and 98.43 ± 1.62–99.42 ± 1.55 (CLS) and 98.23 ± 1.97–101.20 ± 1.79 (PCR) for stavudine, respectively. The commercial tablets percentage content was found 98.10 ± 2.5–102.47 ± 2.94 (CLS) and 99.12 ± 1.71–100.92 ± 1.54 (PCR) for lamivudine and 96.00 ± 2.94–98.17 ± 1.72 (CLS) and 97.40 ± 1.55–97.80 ± 1.92 (PCR) for stavudine, respectively. Good percentage recoveries and proper statistical data obtained with both the laboratory prepared mixtures and the commercial tablets proved the suitability and efficiency of the proposed procedures for routine analysis and quality control purposes with quite satisfactory precision. A comparison of the obtained results from CLS and PCR were also performed with those obtained from reported method. The obtained F- and t-values obtained indicating no significant differences between the results of the proposed and reported methods.